For Danish freesheet 24timer, the key to winning the freesheet war is more local content and less door-to-door distribution.

Or so it seems. 24timer has just masterminded yet another 'merger' with a local freesheet, this time Fyns Stiftstidende's Xtra, securing another local version of its national freesheet. 24timer Xtra will hit the streets 8 August with a circulation of 32,000. Xtra will supply the local coverage, 24timer the national, and the merged freesheet will be distributed at traffic hotspots only.

The merger follows similar deals with Nordjyske's Centrum Morgen and Centrum Aften, and JP Århus. With these moves, 24timer, seems to strike out a very different course from its main competitor, Icelandic Nyhedsavisen.

It was the Icelandic pledge to launch a Danish version of the highly successful Frettabladid, a door-to-door distributed 'quality freesheet', that forced the Danish freesheet war in the first place. But door-to-door distribution has proved difficult and inefficient in Denmark: the distribution form was blamed for the failure of Montgomery-owned freesheet Dato, and these days both Nyhedsavisen and 24timer distribute some of their freesheets via traffic hotspots.